My Weight History

In an earlier post, I mentioned that I got lucky and started diligently collecting my data on Jan 1, 2007, before I was diagnosed with diabetes. This gave me some interesting data to look at.

At some point before Mar 1, 2008, my blood sugars started going though the roof (my A1c on Mar 1 was 14.4).

From this graph, it looks like I had extremely elevated blood sugars for quite some time. This is why I thought my diet was so great-- i was essentially starving to death. It didn't matter how much I ate, I kept losing weight. I was drinking a ton of water (and going to the bathroom a ton) to essentially flush all the calories out of body.

Once, I went on insulin (the little circle on the graph), you can see that my weight shot up!

Since, then, I've had to work to maintain my weight.

A1c Results-- Takes a long time to move that ship

Since diagnosis on March 1st, 2008, here are my A1c results:

3/1/2008	14.4
5/30/2008	7.4
9/2/2008	7.2
11/19/2008	7.6
4/2/2009	7.1
7/10/2009	6.3

For the newbie, these numbers should be less than 7 or 6.5 (or according to some, less than 6.0). The 14.4 was so high that most charts don't even go that high. Luckily, I wasn't showing any signs of damage to the eyes, nerves, kidney's, etc. (at least yet!).

The initial insulin really brought the numbers down to a reasonable level. But, there is still a lot of work to do. And, this is not an easy process. I was already exercising quite a bit and the diet was ok.

It is a constant reminder that it takes daily work to get these numbers where they should be.

I'm still researching how the risk levels really change from 5.5 to 6.0, or from 6.0 to 6.5 as an example. It is hard to get a good answer to where these levels should be. And, it may be that there are just too many factors to consider.

Does Byetta Save Beta Cells

As my honeymoon period wound down and my blood sugars started to rise, my doctor put me on Byetta. The idea was to use Byetta to control the post meal spikes rather than go on insulin right away.

He indicated that in some studies in mice, Byetta restored Beta cells. He stressed that in no way have these results shown to be true in humans.

But, as a diabetic newbie, I was willing to try this approach.

I was on Byetta for about 6-9 months and it did lower my post b-fast and post dinner numbers.

For me, a side effect of Byetta was that it made me mildy nauseous to certain types of foods. I compared it to my wife when she was pregnant-- there were just certain foods that I couldn't stand to look at.

Recently, I went off Byetta in favor of Lantus (insulin) because my pre- and post-meal readings were pretty low.

I hope that Byetta helped preserve some beta-cells.